"They're not my mother and father," Hennagir explained, "but they're my mom and dad."

At Deptford High School, Hennagir wrestled for three years and never won a match. He always thought that embarrassed his "dad." But Jim English could not have been prouder.

"Do you know what kind of character a kid has to have to lose for three years and still stick with it, never quit?" Jim said.

Jim believed Ray had issues of inferiority and insecurity while growing up, another reason the young man found the Marines so appealing, with their motto, Semper Fidelis - Always Faithful.

Donna and Jim tried to push Ray toward the Navy or the Air Force, precisely to avoid what happened, to keep him out of harm's way. "We couldn't change his mind," Jim said.

A week after graduating from high school, in June 2004, Hennagir joined the Marines. "It changed his whole demeanor," Jim said. "He was no longer the insecure kid."

His first tattoo was USMC in Old English letters inside his right forearm.

"Every Marine I know, when they're on leave, their uniform goes into the closet," Donna said. "That's how it was with me when I was in the Navy. But not Ray. . . . He'd go to schools on his leave and try to recruit people. I'd say, 'Ray, are you kidding me? Take off that uniform.' "

Danger underfoot

In Iraq, his primary job became sweeping the ground for caches - artillery shells and weapons that insurgents buried rather than hide in their homes, where Marines might find them.

With metal detector and shovel, Hennagir looked like a guy combing the Jersey beaches. Only he wore full body armor, surrounded by a security detail, and he wasn't searching for spare change.

In two tours in Iraq, Hennagir had rarely fired his weapon. He had been in one firefight, when sniper bullets whizzed by his ear, between his legs, and he had returned fire. Donna remembers him calling home that night, so shaken, so happy to hear a loving voice.

Fighting was the job primarily of Marine "grunts," as Hennagir calls them. "They learn to kill and keep from getting killed," he said. "They're the warriors."

Hennagir was assigned to a platoon of 30 combat engineers - his band of brothers.

On June 15, he and Pfc. Scott "Chuck" Norris, a 20-year-old combat engineer from Florida, were supporting a platoon of grunts in Zaidon, southeast of Fallujah.

Their mission, Hennagir said, was to "reestablish a presence" - sweep for weapons, kill or apprehend insurgents, and build relations with friendly Iraqis. Hennagir liked that last part. On previous missions, he had played soccer with local boys.

Since the last American sweep through Zaidon, however, insurgents had planted many IEDs. There are estimated to be millions of these booby traps in Iraq. According to the Department of Defense, IEDs were responsible for 52 percent of the 3,734 deaths and 68 percent of the 27,767 injuries among American servicemen and servicewomen in Iraq as of Sept. 1.

The concept is simple. Walking along, a Marine steps on a string of little cardboard balls lying unseen in the dirt. The pressure of the footstep connects two wires and ignites a buried explosive - maiming or killing.

According to Hennagir, IEDs can lie harmless until Marines arrive. Then they can be remotely activated, as easily as with the press of a button on a cell phone.